


Look past me (like you always did)

by TheMalapert



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angry Jaskier | Dandelion, Apologies, Curse Breaking, Fairy Tale Curses, Getting Together, Horny Jaskier | Dandelion, Invisibility, Kaer Morhen, M/M, NO torture, Nilfgaard, Post-Mountain fixit, Yennefer has a sense of humor, jaskier gets captured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:02:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28858545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMalapert/pseuds/TheMalapert
Summary: There was ancient magic in the hills. Magic that some called mischief but others called blessings.To be invoked so clearly, well. How could it refuse?Jaskier keeps running into Geralt after the mountain, and the Witcher summarily ignores him. When Jaskier gets captured by a surprisingly civil band of Nilfgaardian assassins, he may just find out why.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 24
Kudos: 281





	1. Chapter 1

There was ancient magic in the hills. In the mountain streams that babbled over bones so old no one recognized them, where shadows moved in the deep and phantom waterfalls took adventurers to their deaths. It was the kind of magic that curled in the womb of a traveling silk trader and fiddled with things like luck. It made blossoms fall at the moment of proposal, made poison ivy thick underneath young lovers. Magic that some called mischief but others called blessings. 

To be invoked so clearly, well. How could it refuse?

Jaskier found himself on a familiar path in unfamiliar surroundings. He convinced himself twelve times that Geralt just needed to calm down, but twenty years of one-sided conversations, of sniping about something as simple as the word _friends,_ weighed on him heavier each step he trudged. At the bottom of the trail, he found the dingy stables where Roach was nibbling on hay. She, at least, looked well. 

“He’ll come around, old girl,” Jaskier said quietly. It was well past sundown, and the stable boy had retired. No one would mind a ratty bard taking shelter amongst the beasts of burden. 

Roach snorted and nosed his pockets for treats. Upon finding none, she turned on him with a peculiar pout. Jaskier always thought it was that dogs that begged insufferably for scraps, but Roach was a queen at wielding the sword of guilt. 

“Let the old man come down, and we’ll get you a whole block of sugar in the next town,” Jaskier promised. He stroked between her ears and down her mane. If Geralt was really going to dismiss him, they would have to work out a visitation schedule. 

Perhaps Jaskier could quarter Roach for the winter, and Yennefer could portal his royal Witcher-ness to Kaer Morhen. 

Though it didn’t seem Yennefer was too eager to do anything for Geralt now. 

“He’s just not had his head on straight,” Jaskier said. He took a seat in a suspiciously damp pile of hay, and Roach side-eyed him. “Alright, I admit he’s never been good with _feelings_ , but I’m not some seen-thrice-in-a-decade fling, okay? I’m his best friend.”

Jaskier paused. 

“Okay, maybe his _second_ best friend.”

Roach shook her head as if to agree that yes, she was also queen of Geralt’s heart. 

“I bet not even Yennefer would measure up to you,” Jaskier said. If he sounded jealous of a horse, only the horse would know. 

He’d fallen asleep in worse places. A pile of hay wasn’t so bad, even if the scuttling rats put him on edge every ten seconds. Eventually, he was able to tune them out. Hugging his lute case tight, he drifted into a dream about the ocean. 

He awoke suddenly to the familiar sound of Roach being saddled. He’d often woke this way to find Geralt minutes from leaving him. Geralt always said it was because Jaskier slept so long, but he couldn’t help not being a morning person! Geralt seemed especially agitated, brow crumpled and nostrils flaring every second breath. 

Jaskier decided to ask gingerly, “Feeling any better in the fresh morning air?”

The air smelled like sour mud and horses, but he knew Geralt liked the smell of horse. Jaskier should have seen the total brush off coming. It was a dumb question. 

“I don’t suppose you’re quiet out of guilt and humiliation at having so crudely yelled at your most loyal travel companion?” Jaskier shifted in the hay, reviving his body from the cold night. 

Geralt didn’t even hmmm. 

How fucking rude. 

“Listen here, I put up with a lot from you, but I think I deserve even a cursory glance—“

Jaskier never finished his rushed demand. Geralt mounted Roach and raced out of the stable. 

“Geralt, you bastard!” Jaskier yelled after him. “Don’t leave me!”

  
  


_Stupid fucking witch and stupid fucking bard and stupid fucking destiny. Curse the lot of them._ Geralt rode hard out of a town that was already bleeding from his memory. He didn’t know how far the bard had gotten. He certainly hadn’t expected to find the inn sans-Jaskier, but the night wasn’t pitch dark. Sometimes they travelled by moonlight. So long as Jaskier stayed on the road, he should be fine. 

He _should_ be. 

But Jaskier always had a knack for attracting trouble. 

It was one thing Geralt found so infuriatingly endearing. He should have found it as annoying as he projected in his scowls, but the truth was that the occasional petty squabble made him feel needed in a way the Path never did. Jaskier was an idiot, that much was true, and yet… He survived before Geralt, and he continued to survive when they were apart. It wasn’t that Jaskier needed him so much as _wanted_ him. Jaskier ran to a Witcher of all things not for a wyvern nest or vampire hunt. He came for protection. For companionship. 

There were worse qualities in men than idiocy. 

He’d laughed with his brothers in the winter about the puny human at his heels. As the years progressed and his personal gnat continued to buzz, the jokes got quieter. The inquiries got more numerous. Did he scream at the sight of the uglier beasts? Not really, he seemed delighted by them. Couldn’t wait to compose. Well, was he any use on the hunts? Not really. But after, he would stitch wounds and spread salves and wash away the grime. The last question Lambert got to ask before having a full course meal of knuckle sandwich: was Jaskier a good fuck?

Geralt could only assume.

They had yet to cross that particular bridge, and Geralt didn’t know if he wanted to. Well, he did _want_ to; the bard was as beautiful as he was infamous. Geralt just knew that he would find some way to fuck it up. To hurt him. Like Yennefer. 

He’d already done that hadn’t he? Yelled at Jaskier, tossed all his problems on the bard’s shoulders. 

He knew Jaskier would never lead him into harm. If Jaskier was another of destiny’s pawns, then he had the best attitude out of all that Geralt had met. 

The road was quiet. 

He came upon a wagon pulling batches of pine needles, but the driver watched Geralt pass warily. Geralt chose not to stop and ask. Surely Jaskier made a camp somewhere near. The next town was two day’s walk. Jaskier couldn’t still be on his feet. 

No sign of the bard ever appeared. 

He almost doubled back to see if the cart driver would give him information in exchange for coin, but no. Perhaps Jaskier bummed a ride from a local headed to trade. Or he’d wooed his way into a passing ladies’ carriage. 

Geralt rode on.

…

_Her Sweet Kiss_ was a monumental success. His heavy coin purse was a poor balm to his broken heart, but what were bards for if not singing and suffering? Jaskier sat atop a table in one of many dark corners of the inn’s common space, done with his set for the night, just composing live. Like he used to do around the fire with Geralt. _With waving locks of moonlit hair…_ Couldn’t be too explicit about it. If he went around singing love songs about golden eyes and massive biceps, someone wouldn’t take too kindly to the idea. _Please don’t leave just because you can._

Rousing and upbeat, just the thing a love lament shouldn’t be, and Jaskier was always keen on breaking the rules. He only had to choose a name that fit in the rhythm. Preferably someone he hadn’t slept with. Couldn’t let people go around thinking he wrote songs about them, now could he? That could lead to an embarrassing fallout, no, he’d never do that. Jaskier took a gulp of his sour wine. He might as well change his title. His life was such a joke that jester really befitted him more. 

Then the door opened, and no one would have bat an eye, least of all Jaskier, except he _knew_ those footfalls. 

Geralt of Rivia settled in a stool at the bar. 

Jaskier was transfixed, a mouse hypnotized by a snake. 

His fingers fumbled into silence, and the woman closest cast him a cursory glance. It took all of eight seconds for him to throw the thin tarp of anger over the pit trap that was his sorrow. Geralt could identify the species of bird from its hops in the leaves. He could track monsters for miles by scent. That bastard _knew_ Jaskier was here! Jaskier put his lute up with careful, measured movements, every second building the anger. He’d had his mourning period; it was time for the fury.

Jaskier marched up to the bar, and _gods_ , Geralt didn’t even look over. He was always like a skittish horse when people approached his back—anyone could see his shoulders tensing, his fingers readying for a fight. But there was nothing. Jaskier leaned against the bar and put on a sneer he usually reserved for Valdo Marx. 

“Oh Jaskier!” The bard snarked. “I see you made it out of the mountain village without getting eaten! I would have stopped to check for your corpse, but I just had so much brooding to do…”

He wasn’t going to look at Jaskier _at all!_

“I hope a drowner bites off your ballsack,” Jaskier hissed, earning a strange look from the barkeep. He whirled and marched upstairs to his room. Of all the rivals and song stealers and downright smug bastards that Jaskier knew, none of them compared to Geralt’s cold shoulder. Why engage a wordsmith in a battle of tongues? Take away his greatest asset—that of an audience—and a troubadour was nothing more than a raving lunatic. Jaskier sure felt like one. 

He was going mad. He was going mad. _He was going mad!_ Geralt showed up three weeks later in a tavern he’d just serenaded. Jaskier informed the innkeep he would not be staying, right over Geralt’s shoulder, and he left the town within the hour. Their roads crossed a month down the line on a nowhere country highway. It was all of five minutes that Geralt trotted up, trotted past, and rode away. The last time it happened, Jaskier decided enough was enough. He was going to entertain the local inn, but he turned tail as soon as he spotted that white—oh, not so white, by the gods, Geralt when did you last wash your hair?—as soon as he spotted the Witcher in the corner. 

That was enough. Jaskier abandoned his plans and made out for the one place Geralt would never show his face. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mild dissociation/purposeful creation of delusions, short description of panic attack

Jaskier did not make it to Blaviken. His plan had worked; he hadn’t seen Geralt in months, but he was still determined to spend a few years with the surety of the Witcher’s absence. Jaskier spent the winter in Tretogor, finding Oxenfurt too wash with memories. At the first signs of spring, Jaskier leisurely picked his way north to the town that had ruined Geralt’s reputation. 

He was accosted a scant few miles out of town by a frantic woman in tattered clothes. Her father broke his leg, she said. Please help us get to town, she said. And Jaskier, always prone to fits of high emotion, didn’t even think before following her into the brush. A hundred paces off the road, Jaskier ran right into a band of brigands with suspiciously good swordsmanship. Jaskier was no slouch with a dagger, but they had the bard bound and blindfolded within ten minutes. 

Jaskier didn’t let his thoughts spiral as they patted him down for weapons—not coin. They took his bags and lute, gods know where, and he was hoisted like a doe over the back of a wide saddle. Even if he wanted to squirm off the horse and bolt, he couldn’t. They tied his hands to a stirrup. 

Just like that, they were off. 

The group, four men and the woman who tricked him, spoke sparingly. It was the kind of silence that gave the impression they’d worked together a very long time. As each mile passed underneath Jaskier’s bruised belly, his optimism for getting out of this dwindled. 

When they stopped, Jaskier was lifted off the horse and sat on the ground rather gently. They sat him up against a tree and tied his hands there. Jaskier knew the sounds of navigating a campsite, and he could tell they’d finally stopped for the time being. It brought no relief. His stomach was no longer being abused by a particularly bouncy gelding, but this was usually the part where the other abuse came out. He nearly flinched out of his skin when cold metal touched his lip.

“Just some water, bard,” came the woman’s voice.

“Is it laced?” 

The metal pressed against his bottom lip. “We don’t need to drug you. We aren’t going to ask you any questions or hurt you in any way.”

Jaskier’s shoulders slumped, and he really was parched. He opened his mouth, letting the woman carefully pour the water. She took it slow, didn’t choke him, and pulled away when he’d had enough. The barest drop slipped from the corner of his lips. 

“I’m to be bait, then?” 

“Yes.”

“For Geralt?”

“For the Witcher, yes.” She checked his bindings and then tugged down the blindfold. 

He was right; they’d made it to a camp. It reminded him so much of Geralt it hurt. A fire at the center, pots littered about it in various states of cleanliness. Five bedrolls sprawled in the small clearing, bunched from having been slept in. Jaskier swallowed thickly. How long would it take to get the word out that he’d been captured? Would Geralt even come?

That was the million mark question. 

Geralt had done an amazing job of pretending he didn’t exist. Even if their paths unfortunately crossed, the Witcher had been resolute in his decision that the bard was nothing but trouble. Now, proven correct, would Geralt let Jaskier rot in the hands of Nilfgaard? Though his treatment hadn’t been savage—yet—he couldn’t help but think their hospitality would run out as soon as they realized this was a useless endeavor. Jaskier went through all the things he knew.

He knew how a Witcher’s potions worked, which ones healed and which ones let Geralt see in the dark and which ones made Geralt shiver in summer, feeble for the hours it took to come down. He knew about Kaer Morhen. That it was in the Blue Mountains, though he’d never seen it. He knew about Yennefer. Geralt’s Child Surprise in Cintra. He knew Geralt liked powdered sugar and thought cinnamon overpowering, that Geralt was a good man who’d tolerated him for twenty years before giving him a long overdue verbal lashing. Worse men wouldn’t have lasted that long. 

Fuck, he knew too much.

He was a danger. He was just a bard, and no matter how fiercely he loved Geralt, torture was torture. These were professionals; he had no doubt he would break given enough time. Even then, they wouldn’t have to waste the time if they took him to a mage. Any two penny witch could dive into his head and tear out anything they needed. 

Jaskier had trained a little with Geralt on mind control. After meeting Yennefer and then getting hypnotized by a pair of bruxa, Jaskier wanted to know how to shore up his mental defenses. Geralt taught him a little—quieting the mind, dissociating, training on how to feel the intrusion. Jaskier hadn’t gotten very good at throwing off the weak _axii_ Geralt used, but he’d gotten better at disobeying. Bending the truth when asked a direct question. That was all he could do, he supposed. A witch could reach into his memories if she wanted to, but Jaskier would fill himself with stories. 

He started by making up a new potion. He called it _Hunt,_ and it kept Geralt awake for days, minimizing his need to eat. Jaskier inserted it into an ekhidna hunt a few years ago. He fretted, hardly getting any sleep himself, as Geralt tracked the beast through a vast, empty swamp. He recalled Geralt’s exhaustion, taking care of the Witcher as he slept for two days straight. Arguing with the alderman. Bathing Geralt while he slept and trying to keep his emotions to himself. Jaskier pulled up a vivid fantasy of lounging in the bed, brushing his fingers through Geralt’s clean hair, until he had to go perform for their room and board. When he came back, Geralt was barely awake.

Geralt didn’t thank him in the fantasy turned memory. That would have been unrealistic, and this was to be as real as possible. Jaskier squeezed his eyes shut, a fist tightening around his heart. That was certainly real. 

His unrequited love became a common theme in each new memory he devised. New hunts with new monsters. As the day wore on and he had nothing else to occupy himself, Jaskier created a whole winter in his head that Geralt hadn’t made it north enough in time. They’d stayed together in the small cabin of a woodsman Geralt once saved from a griffin attack. Long dead, his house still stood a fair trek outside one of the northern mountain villages. Geralt had apologized that Jaskier hadn’t been able to make it to Oxenfurt in the way he tried to give the bard the bed at first. 

Jaskier, of course, insisted he wouldn’t last the winter if they weren’t going to share body heat. The bard tweaked himself just a little, making himself quieter and more contemplative. Even in this dream, he was loath to bother Geralt’s tenuous peace. There was a rocking chair on the porch that Geralt liked to sit in and watch the black sky turn to gray. Once, just before the true winter made them retreat inside for weeks, Geralt had let Jaskier sit in his lap to watch the sun rise. Jaskier could almost feel the warmth, the scratch of a woolen blanket over his shoulders and the strength of the Witcher’s thick thighs beneath him. 

A whole new life tangled inside his other memories, and as days passed into a week, then two, Jaskier felt his grip on reality slip like trying to stand in fast rapids. Even his captors started to feel like something from a fairy tale. They kept him fed and occasionally allowed him to stretch his legs, but otherwise, he was left to stare blankly into the forest. 

The first time he found himself _believing_ Geralt was coming to save him, Jaskier had a full breakdown. Shaking, mind too split to even produce tears, and he thought his heart would fly out of his chest. The woman, called Tasma around the camp, untied him and gave him water. She took him to a nearby stream and helped him bathe, weeks of grime washing away with his panic. He didn’t even make a break for it as Tasma brought him back to camp, binding him again. His limbs were wooden. Instead of snapping himself out of it, bringing himself back to the reality of it all—his captors, their mission to hurt _Geralt_ , twenty years of friendship spat in the dirt—

Jaskier sunk back into his fantasies. 

It happened the night that marked a month of capture. The moon was just a sliver in the sky, and Jaskier found himself awake, buzzing. The man called Westley had the first watch that night, and he whittled a faerie charm by the fire. Jaskier heard the barest whisper on the wind, and it made his heart _burst_ like he’d been stabbed.

Underneath the crackle of the low fire, the steady metronome of Westley’s carving, the soft croak of the nighttime insects: a low, gravel voice whispering _axii._ Jaskier nearly bit his tongue, casting his eyes around the darkness until he saw the barely-there glow of golden Witcher eyes. 

Jaskier didn’t dare speak. 

Geralt crept closer, moving on silent feet to where Westley sat, slack jawed and compliant. Tasma stirred in her bedroll, and Geralt froze. She didn’t wake. Geralt completed his trek, crouching in the shadows cast by Westley’s relaxed body.

“What have you done to the bard?” Was his first, growled question, and Jaskier nearly sobbed. 

“He’s fine. We captured him,” Westley answered. He raised a clumsy arm, pointing to where they had Jaskier bound to his tree. Geralt’s eyes swept over, finally finding Jaskier’s, and the bard let out a whimper, stirring his weak legs.

“ _Geralt,”_ he breathed, but Geralt turned back to Westley.

“Are there any more Nilfgaardian spies or soldiers in this area?” Geralt asked, and Jaskier could understand. Jaskier could wait for Geralt to get the necessary information. 

“They wouldn’t tell us if there were,” Westley answered truthfully. Geralt bared his teeth at the ground before renewing the sign, pushing the magic further into Westley’s mind.

“What does Nilfgaard want with Cirilla of Cintra?” 

Did Geralt collect his Child Surprise? Jaskier remembered her bright, glacial eyes, her laughter as he composed a song just for her eighth name-day. Calanthe wasn’t one to keep her enemies close, but she’d always thought Jaskier simple. An idiot. She was right, of course, and Jaskier would act the simpleton again just to hear that warm giggle that lifted a room. 

Or had that been something he’d imagined? Jaskier’s throat closed. He wasn’t sure anymore. 

“I don’t know. We were just told to use the bard to get to the Witcher,” Westley said. 

“How do you communicate with your superiors?”

Westley’s still pointing finger wound around to indicate his pack next to Hesson’s head. “They do a dead drop at a waterfall upstream. The latest one told us if the Witcher didn’t show up soon, the mission was a wash. We were to liquidate all assets and return south for further instruction.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” Geralt spat, fists trembling so hard with how tight he clenched them. Geralt slunk over to the pack indicated by Westley. Careful of waking Hesson, Geralt rooted around until he produced a small roll of parchment—the Nilfgaardian missive. Geralt waved his hand at Westley’s thousand yard stare, saying, “I was never here.”

Then he _left._

Jaskier struggled against his bonds, chafing his wrists for the first time since the very beginning of his capture. He didn’t want to call out, didn’t want to wake the rest of them, but _Geralt was fucking leaving_.

The Witcher melted back into the darkness and was gone with the next breeze.

What the fuck!

Fucking _Witcher!_

Jaskier kept his jaw sewn shut, but his anger, sadness, his abandonment caught behind his eyes, making them heavy and full. There was no reason for Geralt to leave him behind, except that Geralt wanted him dead. Wanted Nilfgaard to do his dirty work for him. Jaskier’s memories broke around him, twenty years and a month of dreaming turned sour like a poisoned well. He pressed back against the lurch in his lungs; he wasn’t going to go to pieces. He had to figure out a way to escape.

His eyes landed on Westley, still blank, still under the _axii_.

“Westley,” Jaskier whispered, and the man’s face twitched towards him. “Bring your dagger. Cut me loose.”

Westley did as he was told.

Jaskier’s wrists felt odd without the weight of rope against them. He rubbed at the calloused skin, feeling each joint in his arms crack into a place they’d forgotten they were meant to be. Jaskier’s first instinct was to bolt into the woods after the Witcher, but in a month of dissociating, he hadn’t forgotten his girl.

“Bring me my things,” Jaskier ordered, and Westly padded dumbly over to their stores. His pack and his lute were mostly intact—only a few things from his pack were sold for their value. Oils and a silver mirror. Things he could live without. Jaskier quietly rummaged through their food stores, shoving as much hard tack and bread into his pack as possible. Tasma was sleeping, doubly-padded, on his bedroll. 

When he slung his lute over his back, it felt like something slotting into place. A numb limb suddenly regaining blood flow.

“Which way to the road?” Jaskier asked, and Westley did his best impression of a bird dog. “Forget everything that happened tonight. Sleep.”

Westley curled up right there on the ground and slipped off.

Damn, Jaskier was going to have to ask Geralt if he was _positive_ he never made Jaskier do anything stupid while practicing with _axii._ Of course, after an appropriate screaming match. As Jaskier snuck carefully out of the camp that had become his whole world, he let his anger build, fueling his trembling, disused muscles. That fucking Witcher was going to have a new _asshole_ by the time Jaskier was done with him.

…

Geralt knew it was risky to use the main road, but the band of assassins wouldn’t be on his trail until morning, if at all. More likely, they’d find the missive missing in a couple days and chalk it up to living rough. 

He was still no closer to finding Jaskier. 

Dragging Ciri to this edge of the continent was the last thing he wanted to do, but the winter had been a long one. Sword training with the Witchers and magic tutoring from Yennefer hadn’t been enough to keep her mind off of everything she’d lost. The nights were filled with echoing screams, and they’d replaced the door to her room thrice after she reduced it to splinters with her nightmares. Yennefer, still healing from Sodden, had insisted that Geralt take Ciri out of the dreary keep. She crafted glamors for them to wear in towns and gave them a xenovox so that she was always one portal away. 

She’d been right. Travelling, seeing _people_ , had quieted some of Ciri’s torment. Geralt could teach her the ways of Witchers, and Yennefer could teach her to control her newfound powers, but no one at Kaer Morhen was equipped to teach her how to smile again. Instead, she found it in the villages they passed. 

Instead of Witchering, Geralt performed odd jobs—repairs, help with plowing, he once cut down a rabid dog before it managed to snap at the children. He found people much more willing to lodge him, pay him in food, send him on his way with an extra blanket, now that his hair appeared an unobtrusive brown. That the gold shine to his eyes had been dulled. Ciri found her smile, so serious after a winter of training, in the third town they crossed. There was a bard performing love ballads for the dinner crowd, and Ciri hid her smile behind her hand. Geralt dropped him a coin he couldn’t spare out of deference to his bard. 

She found her laughter in the eighth. She was a little rusty at it, but her body convulsed with it like greeting an old friend. Geralt hadn’t even been purposely telling a joke, just a little story about a drowner hunt that Jaskier had attended. He found she liked his stories, and he tried to be more like his chattering bard. He never realized how fucking difficult it was to keep up that measure of talk. When he found Jaskier again, Geralt would share his amazement at the skill, and he was sure Jaskier would never let him forget it.

Except, that he was still no closer to finding his bard!

Geralt was so certain that he’d tracked the right band of assassins. Every rumor, every movement had made sense, but still, Jaskier was nowhere to be found. Geralt didn’t know his next move, just knew he needed to get Ciri away from here. They’d run for a couple towns, and then Geralt would call Yen to reassess. She, at least, was supportive of his new quest. She had yet to forgive him fully, and they hadn’t fallen into bed since the dragon hunt. But, Jaskier in the hands of Nilfgaard spelled trouble for all, so she was ready to help any way she could.

Ciri was almost asleep at his back as the sun rose. He’d have to treat Roach to the good hay, maybe a couple of sugar cubes, for keeping her up through the night. 

Ciri stiffened, and he felt her body turn. He glanced over his shoulder, but he didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. The dirt road stretched behind them, the sun peeking from over the pines. Geralt again faced forward, dropping a hand to pet over Roach’s neck. A few more miles, it promised, and she snorted. _One apple per mile_ , her snort demanded, and Geralt rested his hands on the reigns.

 _One apple per every three miles, and one sugar cube per every five,_ he negotiated with a tug. Roach shook her head, rolling one big eye back to look at her Witcher. 

In his pretend conversation, Roach called him a bastard. He let his lips spread in a smile, something he was doing a lot more these days. Where once the muscles were atrophied from disuse, he found a visual expression of his happiness most effective in communicating with Ciri. 

Ciri poked the small of his back.

“Geralt?” Her voice was so much stronger than when she first came to him, and Geralt felt a swell of pride at how far she’d come.

“Hmmm.”

“There’s someone coming. Don’t you hear them? They’re shouting something,” she said.

Geralt pulled Roach to a stop and turned his head fully, peering down the empty road. Ciri wasn’t the kind to lie like this, though, so he slid off Roach and retrieved his silver sword. Fae, perhaps? Some sort of sentience in the trees that called to Ciri’s magic? He kept walking, sword pointed low, and Ciri’s body was twisted all the way around.

“You don’t see them? Gods, they’re running,” Ciri said.

“Probably a mirage to lure unsuspecting travellers. I don’t want you to get off of Roach, understand? If we hit trouble—”

“Ride off and call Yennefer. I know,” she groaned with a roll to her eyes. Geralt smirked at it, walking sedately. He kept his senses open, but he was catching nothing except the usual noise of the forest.

Ciri continued, “It looks like a man, and I think he’s cursing at us. He looks really mad. Hey, wait a second…”

Geralt did not wait. He saw no harm in letting Ciri watch the illusion. If it snared her mind, he was there to catch her, and if it didn’t, she’d be better for having seen it. Analyzed it. Next time, maybe it wouldn’t fool her so easily.

He didn’t find it strange when she lapsed into silence, so long as she stayed on the horse.

…

“ _Fucking Geralt!”_ Jaskier screamed, sure that the black, horse mounted figure at the vanishing point of the road was his ass of a Witcher. Jaskier broke into a jog. His limbs felt like sand after so long with so little use, but he hadn’t been starved or beaten. He used his anger, that adrenaline, to push himself forward.

“You’re a bastard, you know that?” He called. “If you wanted me dead, you could have _done it yourself, you coward!_ I might be the most annoying shitstain on the continent, but you’ve treated people who _spit on you_ better than you treat me, _fucking bastard Witcher!”_

He saw Geralt’s bulk dismount Roach, leaving a waif in the saddle. Blonde, glinting in the sunrise. He hadn’t made up that memory.

“Surprise!!” Jaskier yelled with all his might, lungs burning as he continued his pursuit. “I see you finally took your head out of your _ass_ and did the right thing, you filthy, smelly, _overbearing, grunt with legs! You godsdamned piece of shit discount anti-hero, so fucking wrapped up—selfish! So fucking selfish—”_

He kept yelling his most creative insults, but by the time he caught up with the pair, he was down to just swears, gasping for breath between snipes.

“Fuck you,” Jaskier wheezed, massaging out a stitch in his side. He’d finally closed the distance, even as Geralt continued on, didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge him at all. 

“Um, Geralt?” Ciri prodded Geralt’s shoulder, and he hummed up at her. 

“Ah, my dear Cirilla, how happy I am to see you alive and well and with Geralt. Now, please bear witness to my demise as I attempt, and likely fail, to beat the shit out of your adoptive father.” Jaskier tugged up the sleeve of the same doublet he’d worn for a fucking month, and he advanced on the bastard’s turned back.

“Geralt?” Ciri questioned, voice rising in panic.

Geralt swung around at her tone, sword half-raised, teeth bared, perfectly in time for Jaskier to let loose his curled fist.

He didn’t expect it to hit. 

Really, he’d never gotten a hit on Geralt, not in decades, but his knuckles cracked against the hard jut of Geralt’s cheekbone. The Witcher’s head snapped back, and pain bloomed over Jaskier’s fingers. 

“Fucking _cock_ ,” Jaskier cried, cradling his fingers against his chest. Geralt blinked owlishly for a moment before gripping tight to his sword. 

“What the fuck.” Geralt swept out with his blade, and it was all Jaskier could do to scramble back before being sliced in half. 

“Yeah, well, a punch to the face is the _least_ you deserve, and I don’t think it’s a killing offense!” Jaskier kept a keen eye on Geralt’s sword—the silver one, how odd. “Cirilla, let’s get your take on this. If you’d been friends with someone, say, twenty years, would you then call their presence a curse and wish to never see them again?”

Ciri slid off of Roach, wide eyes never leaving Jaskier. Geralt growled and tried to shield her, from what he didn’t know, but she slid a dagger off his belt and crowded between him and the bard. Geralt looped an arm over her chest but allowed her to stay, curling around her in a very mama bear fashion. Jaskier would call it cute except for the double blades pointed towards him. 

“Really, Cirilla, I don’t believe that for a second,” Jaskier said. He crossed his arms tightly over his stomach, and Ciri watched the fight leave him. Fire in his eyes dulled, shoulders slumped. “Look, I’ll leave you be. Geralt, you look jumpy enough as it is, don’t need to force a useless bard on you. I just think you’re not setting a very good example for the girl. Leaving me in that Nilfgaard camp.”

Jaskier’s breath hitched, and his eyes already ached from crying so much. The tears came easily, though, hot over already heated skin. Ciri’s brow furrowed, and she lowered the dagger.

“What’s going on?” Geralt growled, and Ciri put a placating hand over his forearm. 

“Jaskier, isn’t it?” Ciri asked, and Jaskier nearly sobbed. It was the first time someone had said his name in over a month. “I remember you singing at my birthday.”

“Jaskier?” Geralt’s eyes darted about the scenery desperately, but he just wasn’t seeing whatever vision Ciri was having. His face ached, reminding him it was much more than a vision. 

“Yes, I suppose I did sing for you a few times, princess,” Jaskier replied.

“Geralt, you can’t see him?” Ciri turned her head, glancing up to where Geralt’s chin darted back and forth. Searching. 

Geralt swallowed around the lump forming in his throat. He didn’t dare to hope, but something bright bloomed in his gut. He inched forward, nudging Ciri behind, and he cast his hand out into the air. 

“Jaskier?” It was aimed at the emptiness, this time as Geralt sought out something—the hand that punched him, maybe.

“He hasn’t been… able to see me? Hear me?”

Geralt twitched when he heard Ciri answer out of the blue, “I don’t think so.”

Jaskier’s world was spinning, an anger so righteous draining down like a buoy in a whirlpool. Geralt’s hand waved right past his face, and he drew back for a second. Ciri nodded her encouragement, and with the next wave, Jaskier caught Geralt’s hand. 

He revelled in the little punched-out gasp from the Witcher. Geralt dropped his sword into the dirt, fucking unprecendented, and his other hand groped until he found the point of Jaskier’s elbow. He gripped it, pulling Jaskier closer, so the bard stumbled into his chest. His eyes still searched fruitlessly, and Jaskier saw it now for what it was. Geralt’s hands dragged over Jaskier’s invisible form, and the bard was sure Geralt would blush if he saw exactly how intimate it looked. Geralt’s hands moved until he cradled Jaskier’s face. It was the right height, Geralt reasoned, but it could still be an elaborate trick. 

“Please let this be real,” Geralt breathed, thumbs ghosting over Jaskier’s wet cheeks. “Tell me something. Anything.”

“Would the girl like to hear about the time I rubbed chamomile on your lovely bottom?” He said, right in Geralt’s face, but he could see how it didn’t reach the Witcher. No change, whatsoever, when in years past, a mention of the lovely bottom incident would get him a betrayed glare. To be fair, Jaskier never agreed to not speak of it again. 

Ciri’s giggle broke Geralt’s concentration, and suddenly, the Witcher realized how many stories Jaskier could tell that he _didn’t_ want her to hear. 

“Something about chamomile on your ass…?” She broke into another peal of laughter, and Geralt felt the form between his hands shift. Like a body shaking with laughter. Out of habit, he growled at the thing that was supposed to be Jaskier. 

He scruffed the bard, feeling the intricate embroidery of—if he remembered correctly—Jaskier’s purple doublet. Geralt bent down and picked up his sword.

“Hey, hey! No need to get huffy! I didn’t even tell her anything!” Jaskier ranted, shrinking back from the sight of the blade.

“Stop it,” Geralt chastised, and it came out so similar to how they used to banter that Jaskier stilled, letting the sword come to him. Geralt raised it slowly, aware of how much he’d spooked the bard. He pressed the flat of the blade against what he was sure was Jaskier’s cheek. He checked with Cirilla, and she nodded.

“No burning at the touch of silver. No magic,” she said. “I’m going to call Yen!”

Ciri dove into the saddlebag, and Geralt replaced his sword in its sheath. He still held his firm grip on Jaskier’s doublet, dragging the invisible bard closer to Roach. 

“What do you have against Yennefer?” Ciri snapped, and Geralt groaned. He had no idea what curse Jaskier had stumbled into this time, but it was going to be a long fucking day.


	3. Chapter 3

Yennefer, of course, thought it was fucking hilarious. After portalling them all back to Kaer Morhen, Ciri gave her the rundown. With how they would occasionally quiet and glance to the side, Geralt could only assume Jaskier was adding colorful commentary. She’d laughed for a good five minutes, the sound long missed in the old keep. Vesemir came running, wondering if she’d gone mad, but he quickly backed out when he got a read on the situation. Now, they were sitting in the room Yennefer had commandeered as her lab, and Geralt was listening to two thirds of a conversation. 

“Jaskier says you looked like shit in Zavada, and he wants to know if you bathed at all in between cursing his existence and coming to get me.” Damn Ciri, taking Jaskier’s side. 

The room had gone very quiet when Jaskier described the last time he was sure Geralt could see him. Yennefer declared that life had given him his blessing, and Ciri hadn’t addressed him since except to relay Jaskier’s insults.

“You can tell Jaskier—”

“He can hear you.”

“Well, _fuck_ , Jaskier,” Geralt said, exasperated. “I said I was sorry for that, and I didn’t fucking know I’d invoke some _cosmic bullshit_ and make you invisible to me. Now will you stop using my daughter as your personal messenger?”

“He says fine, but that you should—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Geralt roared. Regret immediately rushed through him. “Look, I didn’t mean—”

“Why break the curse at all?” Yennefer said, but she laid her hand on the air above the chair Geralt was pretty sure Jaskier was sitting in. She was speaking for him. “Your life will continue as you wanted it to. I’ll lay low until the war is over, so you don’t have to worry about Nilfgaard again.”

“ _Jaskier_ ,” but he said it like one of his many growled _fuck_ -s. Geralt stood, his chair rattling across the floor, and he fled. 

He couldn’t think, not when Ciri and Yennefer were glaring at him, and he couldn’t even see Jaskier to gauge how serious he truly was. He made it back to his room, slamming the door. A small dish of water sat on his desk, and he dipped his hands in it, splashing the cold water over his face. 

Fuck, maybe Jaskier _should_ keep the curse. That way, he wouldn’t have to deal with Geralt even if they stood toe to toe. If the punch and the myriad of insults were anything to go by, the _last_ thing Jaskier wanted to do was accept his apology, and there was definitely no consideration for going back to how they’d been. With Ciri and the war brewing, Geralt knew it was impossible to go back to his simple Witchering now, but some part of him had hoped… Jaskier had been in his life for so long, and it was agony without him. The silences held no peace, the space next to him in bed, no warmth. 

“I made a mistake,” he said out loud. There was a dull mirror hanging above his desk, usually used to shave or inspect injuries, but this time he glared at himself. 

“I made a mistake, and I would take it back if I could…” Geralt’s teeth ground together. “That’s fucking stupid.”

He dropped into the chair, and the sleepless night suddenly caught up to him. He wasn’t seventy five, anymore, for sure. Pushing a hundred with a recently acquired child was wearing on him like water over rock. Geralt scrubbed his hands over his face and looked again into the mirror.

“Jaskier, I’m sorry,” he started, and that was good. Simple. Effective. “I shouldn’t have said those things after the dragon hunt and gotten you cursed.”

Okay, but he’d already tried all that, and Jaskier was still pissed like a wet cat. 

“I was angry with my own dumb decisions, and it was easy to dump it all on you.” Yes, this was true. “The truth is that everything I blamed you for has actually become a blessing. If you’d never taken me to that banquet, I never would have found Ciri, and I love her so much it fucking scares me. And with the djinn, I got to love Yennefer for a while, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything, but more importantly, Ciri has a mother figure and a mentor for her magic. I don’t even care that Yen and I aren’t together anymore, and I really think that’s because…”

Geralt sucked in a breath and furrowed his brow at the crazed, vulnerable look in his own eyes. 

“It’s because I’m also in love with you, just in a different way. Not like _different_ different, but it just feels different. I still want to kiss your stupid face, but there’s other things too that I never thought about with Yen.” Gods, he was babbling. Geralt threw up his hands, disrupting the bowl and splattering water over his desk. “And I’m never gunna say any of this to you because I don’t deserve to. You’ll forgive me, maybe, but I’ve fucked up so much, and I can’t guarantee I won’t again. I can’t!”

Geralt fell silent with a hand over his eyes. He could muster up the courage for a proper apology, but the other thing was best kept as another secret haunting the halls of the keep—

A light pressure pushed against his lips. 

Geralt’s eyes flew open, hand smacking down to the desk, but there was nothing in front of him. _Fucking hell_.

“Jaskier?” He breathed. 

The answer came as a kiss pressed to his jaw.

“You heard all that?” 

Another kiss to the other side. Geralt resisted the urge to flinch back, instead closing his eyes and pretending Jaskier wasn’t cursed. 

“And?” His voice barely crested a whisper. Gods, he was so afraid. Every second without another touch pressed against his spine, muscles twisting, tension wrapping around his panicked brain like a thick, downy blanket. 

And then.

_And then._

Jaskier pressed a kiss to his lips, more than the feather touch of earlier. Geralt felt a hand slide over his shoulder, a body settle on his thighs. When a tongue flicked briefly across his bottom lip, Geralt’s eyes slitted open. 

Well, so much for true love’s kiss breaking curses. 

“This is weird for me,” Geralt said, shifting away from the phantom touches. He felt the body across his lap tense, and he cursed himself. “Fuck, not like that. I can’t fucking _see_ you Jaskier. I don’t want your tongue down my throat when I can’t even see if you like it.”

A single finger trailed over the column of his throat as if to ask, _but you’d let me stick my tongue down your throat?_

“You know, there once was a time when a curse to make you shut up would have been absolutely dandy,” Geralt said, and he slowly wrapped his arms around Jaskier. 

A sharp bite to his neck made Geralt chuckle. He felt a tongue soothe back over it, then Jaskier’s wet mouth _sucking,_ the prick of pain making it that much better. Geralt tried to contain his low grumble, feeling up to Jaskier’s hair and yanking the bard away.

“Jask, please. I want to be able to see you when we…” Geralt cut himself off with a grunt, turning red at the ears. “I don’t want to assume, fuck. I mean, you can’t even tell me anything. What if—”

A hand pressed between his legs where his cock had taken interest in Jaskier’s invisible antics. Geralt let out a groan, head tipping back to thump against the chair. 

“That’s a pretty clear signal,” Geralt said. 

He felt Jaskier mouth down his neck, fingers working at the ties in his trousers. It was surreal to watch his pants peel open on their own, his cock falling out, but he felt Jaskier’s long, lute-calloused fingers wrap around him. Fuck, the bard moved fast. Geralt’s hands twisted in whatever clothes Jaskier was wearing. He moved over Jaskier’s ribs, noting that yes it was the purple doublet because it had the ruching around his chest, and Geralt was pissed he remembered that. 

“No, no. Jaskier, no.” Geralt pulled the bard away again, feeling Jaskier’s arms cross in front of his chest. “Let’s go see Yennefer, and once she lifts the curse, I’ll touch you as much as you want.”

He didn’t need to see Jaskier to know he was pouting. 

Jaskier scrambled off his lap. The bard barely waited enough to allow Geralt to put his cock away. As soon as they were decent, Jaskier pulled his Witcher back down the hallway. In the time it took for Geralt to storm off, confess his love to his invisible bard, spurn said bard in favor of getting handsy when Jaskier actually _existed_ on Geralt’s plane of awareness, and be subsequently dragged back to Yen’s lab—well, something had happened, and his daughter was orange. 

“I’m not going to ask,” Geralt said. 

“Well, first of all it’s not my fault.” Ciri began, and she glanced at the space next to Geralt. “Oh, thank you, Jaskier. I do look rather fetching in orange.”

The room quieted as Yen and Ciri listened to Jaskier. Geralt had no idea what the bard was saying, but by Yennefer’s eye-roll, it was exactly as bad as he feared.

“He wants you to know he enthusiastically consents to anything and everything you’d like to do, and if he wants to stop, he’ll tap you three times on the shoulder,” Yennefer drawled, and Geralt’s mind went blank.

It was worse than he feared.

“ _Jaskier_ ,” he growled, but Yennefer interrupted.

“I’ll need the week to prepare. I’m still not fully recovered, so I need more time and ingredients than usual. Do you think you can handle being like this for a week?”

“Yen, I—”

“I was talking to Jaskier.”

Geralt’s mouth snapped shut, and his face felt hot. He’d never wished more in his life he could hear the bard’s voice. 

…

Having an invisible boyfriend was _weird_. 

It wasn’t just the not being able to see his potential lover. If Jaskier was just invisible and silent, that would be one thing, but he wasn’t. He was just invisible and silent to _Geralt_. That wasn’t all, either. It seemed the the magic cut him off from perceiving anything about Jaskier, up until the point that Geralt ran into the fool. Any door Jaskier opened, any mug Jaskier drank from. It was all as if Jaskier didn’t exist until Geralt reached out to take a drink from the cup on the table, and his head went fuzzy, and he ended up with an empty hand. 

Yennefer was having a field day. She’d extended the timeline on curing the curse, just so she could study it a little more. A spell this strong would be invaluable for avoiding Nilfgaard, and Geralt agreed. It was just…

Jaskier was getting _handsy_. 

Granted, Geralt tried to keep contact with his bard. He kept Jaskier in his bed at night where he could rest a hand on his chest and feel the evidence of the bard’s life. He asked that Jaskier come touch him if he entered or exited a room, and Jaskier took it to mean touching all the time which Geralt didn’t mind. Geralt liked to touch, liked to know Jaskier was okay, safe. Except that his wandering hands prompted Jaskier’s wandering hands which were much less wandering and much more determined. 

Geralt was coming to the end of his rope. One would think that dealing with the bard for twenty-some years would have extended his patience to infinity, but he finally had the chance to have Jaskier like he wanted, to spend all night erasing every other lover until there was only Geralt, to _love_ Jaskier. It didn’t help that Yennefer knew exactly how wound up he was. They’d done some adventurous things in their time—a unicorn came to mind—but Geralt would be damned if the first time he fucked Jaskier he couldn’t even _see_ the bard. 

And yet, Jaskier seemed determined for the opposite. 

“ _Jask,_ ” Geralt growled, and he felt a smile curve against his throat. A hand caressed up to tangle fingers in his hair, and one steadied at his waist. Another kiss landed on his lips. Geralt was thoroughly distracted and didn’t at first notice another hand landing on his shoulder. 

Then a finger poking his cheek.

“What the fuck.” Geralt mentally tallied every touch and came up with two hands the bard shouldn’t have. He stared hard at the empty air in front of him. It clicked, and he grimaced. “Yennefer!”

The sorceress appeared with a wave of her hand, laughing, nearly doubled over. 

“Don’t look at me like that, Geralt. I have good news,” she said, eyes still shining with mirth. He felt Jaskier tear away from him, and Yennefer rocked back as if she’d been tackled by a determined koala. 

“It’s time,” Geralt breathed. Yennefer met his eyes and nodded. Her gaze slanted, and she went silent. 

“He asked if I was sure I got everything I needed,” Yennefer explained for Geralt’s benefit. Geralt wasn’t going to be the one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but someone probably should have. Geralt groped around until he caught Jaskier’s arm, pulling the bard back into his chest. 

“You do?” Geralt asked, perfunctory. He trusted Yen. He trusted that she’d let Jaskier torment him for the rest of his days if it meant a leg up on Nilfgaard, so if she said it was time, it was _time_. 

“One can study a lock until the only thing left to do is open it,” she replied with a shrug. They moved away from the shadowy alcove that Jaskier had backed him into, headed for Yennefer’s lab. No one knew what else to call it, though Lambert had suggested _Evil Bitch Lair._ He later found his chest of drawers filled with sand and spent the next month doing laundry, muttering about vengeful witches. 

“Sit,” Yennefer commanded, and when Geralt made for the rickety chair in the middle of the room, Yen put a hand out to stop him. He was so fucking glad this was about to be over. 

She started doing some complicated things, chanting lowly in Elder. Runes and symbols started to glow on the floor. After a moment, Yennefer beckoned him over, Geralt jumping to obey. She took his arm, and with a dagger that glowed with the same runes, she made a puncture in the crook of his arm. She held it up, over the chair so that the blood dripped down to the seat of it. Geralt watched, disappointment swirling in his gut, as the blood pooled in the chair. 

Then it didn’t.

It impacted on something just inches away from his sluggishly bleeding arm. The blood hung there in the air before slipping to the side, curving a path that looked very much like a head. As that first weighty drop rushed forward, Geralt thought he saw something in the path left behind. Yennefer squeezed his arm and pricked the skin again, his Witcher healing already staunching the blood flow. She got a few more trails, and Geralt watched, fascinated as the red tracks seemed to curl around nothing. He saw them hit Jaskier’s shoulders, run down his chest, part around his thighs. 

Like a mirage, Jaskier slowly came into focus. 

He was grimacing, a red line of blood rolling down his cheek. Yennefer ended her chant, pressing a small cloth into Geralt’s wound. He didn’t care and let it fall away when he knelt in front of his bard. Finally, _finally_ in front of him. Visible. Real. 

Jaskier’s eyes met Geralt’s, and Jaskier blurted out, “I love you.”

 _Gods_ , Geralt had missed that voice. 

The Witcher lunged forward, slotting their lips together. He breathed in deep, the chamomile and sweat scent of Jaskier filling his nostrils for the first time in months. And the _taste._ Geralt hadn’t even registered he wasn’t able to taste the bard, so focused on the more obvious senses. He greedily plundered Jaskier’s mouth, pressing the bard back in the chair. It creaked dangerously, but Geralt only broke away when the metallic taste of his own blood snuck in between their kisses. 

“I love you,” Geralt said back. 

Jaskier _glowed._ His hands wandered over Geralt’s shoulders, his neck, his jaw, and he stood, bringing Geralt up like a puppet on a string. 

“Ugh,” Yennefer scoffed. “At least go to the baths before you fuck. You look like a virgin sacrifice.”

“Oh that _cannot_ stand,” Jaskier said, tugging Geralt out of the room. “It’s a good thing I can multitask!”

Geralt let himself, again, be led by his bard. Down to the hot springs, clothes off. Into the waters, mouths wandering. 

And in everything after that. 


End file.
